Earlier this year, in a little remarked upon episode, the nation was exposed to how differently men and women politicians are treated in media. In September, Senator John McCain was showered with accolades after he voted against his party’s attempt to repeal Obamacare and urged his peers to espouse cross-party conciliation. McCain’s Johnny-Come-Lately stake in the ground came, however, in the wake of the consistent, longer-standing, and defiant intra-party opposition of two other Republican Senators, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, who were motivated, in part by their pro-choice stance.

Activism in the form of editing and contributing to Wikipedia articles is a natural venue for women immersed in social media engagement. Using research skills that they have spent their lifetimes honing, women have the potential and opportunity to narrow massive gender and information gaps on Wikipedia and other information resources.

Rape threats and other sexualized vitriol online feel extremely personal. These are messages that often go into explicit detail about which parts of our bodies will be violated with which instruments. They give the impression that the senders know us, that they are aware of our particular weak spots and of what to say to […]

It was an assault rifle being fired in a pizzeria that signaled the severity of Facebook’s fake news problem. Call it Pizzagate – a right-wing conspiracy theory based on a baseless lie by 4chan. The rifle being fired was far from the only danger to employees and the owner of Comet Ping Pong – they’ve […]

“’Online musings’ is a ridiculous euphemism for what are of-ten grossly violent and misogynistic threats,” Soraya Chem-aly, director of the Speech Project of the Women’s Media Center, which seeks to encourage free expression and curtail online abuse, told Cosmopolitan.com. “It sends the message to abusive partners, obsessive stalkers, or angry rejected boys that it’s just fine to post a little ditty in social media and claim they were joking. It sends the correlating message to women that their realistic assessments of risk and the costs of chang-ing their lives in response to threats is irrelevant. It solves nothing and, arguably, makes things worse.